WIESENTHAL CENTER’S CHIEF NAZI-HUNTER MEETS WITH DIRECTORS OF POLISH "INSTITUTE OF NATIONAL MEMORY" TO ADVANCE INVESTIGATION OF MAJDANEK GUARD DISCOVERED IN FRAMEWORK OF "OPERATION:LAST CHANCE"

Warsaw-The Simon Wiesenthal Center’s chief Nazi-hunter Dr. Efraim Zuroff met here today with Prof. Dr. Leon Kieres, President of the Polish "Institute of National Memory" and Dr. Witold Kulesza, director of prosecution at the Institute to advance the investigation of a female Majdanek guard, discovered living in Austria, in the framework of the Center’s "Operation: Last Chance" project.

Dr. Zuroff also presented the initial results of "Operation: Last Chance" in Poland, where the Center has already received the names of twenty individuals alleged to have committed crimes against Jews during the Holocaust. Many of the cases involve Poles who are alleged to have murdered, or handed over to the Nazis, Jews who were in hiding in Poland, in some cases after promising to provide them with shelter in return for financial compensation.

According to Zuroff, researching Holocaust crimes by Poles is particularly difficult since, unlike the situation in the Baltics for example, the Nazis did not create Polish police units which they incorporated in the implementation of the Final Solution, and thus the crimes committed by Poles were invariably carried out by individuals acting on their own initiative, which makes them much harder to document and verify.

"Operation: Last Chance(Ostatnia Szansa)" infoline in Poland:(022)498-1507

"Operation: Last Chance" website: www.operationlastchance.org

For more information, please call:00-972-50-721-4156